Transcript DOES GENDER MATTER FOR YOUTH PARTICIPATION? Naciye Gizem Danışan, Tülin Şener, Figen Çok, University of Ankara, Turkey Paper presented at the Surrey PIDOP Conference on.

DOES GENDER MATTER
FOR YOUTH
PARTICIPATION?
Naciye Gizem Danışan, Tülin Şener, Figen Çok,
University of Ankara, Turkey
Paper presented at the Surrey PIDOP Conference on “Political and Civic
Participation”, April 16th-17th, 2012, University of Surrey, Guildford, UK

The equal access to participation resources by all
segments of society is extremely important in order to
endure and equalize the participation of youth,
ethnicities and women into decision making
processes!!

Being inactive might risk to be ignored when policies are
made. So women’s participation is important to better
communicate the preferences and needs of women to
public officials
◦ not only because of the impact on policy but also of bringing women
recognition as full members of community, education about social, political
world and contacts that are useful in other social pursuits (Burns N. et. al.
2001, 6).
PIDOP-Processes Influencing Democratic
Ownership and Participation
FACILITATORS OF
PARTICIPATION
What factors facilitating or inhibiting the equal civic and
political participation of women and youth are necessary ??
Institutional factors: electoral or legal systems
 Contextual factors: cultural and socioeconomic external resources
 Individual factors: willingness or motivation
showed

◦ Are the conditions and policies empowering women for
participation (Iwanaga K. 2008)
◦ In the absence of any facilitator, women’s advancement
in politics may not take place or become uneven
PIDOP-Processes Influencing Democratic
Ownership and Participation
INHIBITING FACTORS:
Time limits for women due to extra household workload
with kids and duties
 The absorbed mental energy due to raising toddlers
 Patriarchal structure of in-family relations with husband
 Socio-economic limitations
 Discrimination in society among women’s participation
 The childhood and adult socialization which implies the
importance of a one’s environment in relation to politics

These are the inhibiting factors explains why women continue to
lag behind men in political activity (Burns N. et. al. 2001)
PIDOP-Processes Influencing Democratic
Ownership and Participation
Historical Perspective
Just after the Turkish war of indipendence (19191922) the population includeed 7 million women
and 5 million men in Turkey where almost 90% of
the population was not lettered.
 During the first reforms there were successful
empowering women role-models such as

◦ Sabiha Gökçen (1913-2001) who is the first women war
pilot in the world
◦ Afet İnan (1908-1985) the Turkish historian and
sociology professor
PIDOP-Processes Influencing Democratic
Ownership and Participation

The young Turkish Republic that Atatrük
engendered, had the supporting elements for
women participation education and employment.

A series of reforms followed by Atatürk who is
the founder of Republic of Turkey, including :
◦ Clothing reforms, educational rights of women and the
improvements on civil code.
◦ Turkish women had the electoral rights due to the
Atatürk’s reforms In 1934 which is eralier than many of
the developed European countries today
Paradoxal Gender Gap in Turkey
In today’s Turkey, there are also efforst the erode
the gender gap especially in educaton.
 Turkish women shows up taking active part in
key-positions in many institutions such as:

◦ The head of Turkish Industrialists' and Businessmen's
Association is a women (Ümit Boyner)
◦ The president of Turkey was a women (Tansu Çiller)
in1993-1996
◦ The number of women acaddemicians is higher than
men in Turkey
 On the contrary, in bureaucracy and politics the amount
of women is much less than men in Turkey.
PIDOP-Processes Influencing Democratic
Ownership and Participation
AIM
The aim of this paper is to investigate:

The gender differences among different types of
civic/political
participation
and
the
possible
explanatory factors for the association between
gender and the level of civic/political participation.
 Does being from an ethnic minority or being young matter for
civic/political participation in a gendered manner in Turkey?
 Whether gender appears as a gap on the types and level of
civic/political participation in Turkey?
PIDOP-Processes Influencing Democratic
Ownership and Participation
Participants and Method

Results arise from the data gathered for the Process
Influencing
Democratic
Ownership
and
Participation (PIDOP) Project within the scope of
Work Package 6 by Turkey team.

732 young participants aged between 16 and 26
and having diverse ethnic backgrounds from
Bulgarian resettlers, Roma and Turkish origin
took part in the study.
PIDOP-Processes Influencing Democratic
Ownership and Participation
Participants and Method

In the process of composing the groups, the
research team attempted to recruit participants
having different characteristics in terms of their
socio-economic and educational statuses.

Several associations and organizations set up by
Bulgarian Turks and the Roma people and
institutional actors such as the directors of several
non-governmental organizations working on
minority issues were collaborated with the data
collection process.
PIDOP-Processes Influencing Democratic
Ownership and Participation
Participants and Method
The results from the ‘PIDOP Questionnaire’ including
 direct participation,
 participation on the net and
 civic engagement scales with 15 items,

‘Participation
and
Involvement
in
Civic/political
Organizations Questionnaire with 8 items’ and

‘Quality of Participation Questionnaire’ including action
and reflection scales with 8 items are presented.

Results are considered according to gender and age
differences among a group of participants divided into two
categories as 16 to 19 years old and 20 to 26 years old.
Analyzes
In this
between :
study,
significant
associations
◦ the three different types of participation (in
terms of direct participation, participation on
the net, civic engagement),
◦ quality of participation (in terms of action,
reflection scales) and
◦ gender and age represented.
◦ Also group of civic/political organizations
and the frequency of participating in
these organizations among the study
groups represented.
Significant Multivariate Effects of Participation and
Quality of Participation by Gender
Male
Female
F (1, 728) = 1.918, p< 1.25
Direct
Participation
Participation
Net
On
Civic Engagement
Action
Reflection
Mean
Mean
69,288
52,144
71,874
54,864
78,18
67,742
9,051
11,721
F (1, 577) = 2.609, p< .07
8,852
12,367
PIDOP-Processes Influencing Democratic
Ownership and Participation
Significant Multivariate Effects of Participation and
Quality of Participation by Age
16-19 years old
20-26 years old
F (1, 728) = 3000, p< .03*
Mean
Mean
Direct Participation
72,399
51,741
Participation On Net
77,347
52,579
Civic Engagement
88,093
61,168
F (1, 577) = 5.965, p< .003*
Action
Reflection
8,252
9,485
11,344
12,561
PIDOP-Processes Influencing Democratic
Ownership and Participation
Type of
participatio
Age groups n
direct part.
Gender
male
female
total
16-19 years
Part. on net
male
female
total
civic eng.
male
female
total
direct part.
male
female
total
20-26 years
part on net
male
female
total
civic eng.
male
female
Turkish
mean
9,04
30,84
23,45
14,11
38,10
29,98
18,16
45,92
36,52
18,55
15,23
16,72
22,84
15,47
18,79
29,08
17,52
Roma people
mean
135,76
139,84
137,11
144,00
140,30
142,77
147,79
173,55
156,31
130,25
127,98
129,31
133,44
138,30
135,45
143,75
155,86
Bulgarian
resettler mean
52,69
21,75
33,94
44,27
28,13
34,48
45,88
48,58
47,52
30,43
32,94
31,57
28,25
28,53
28,38
36,65
38,70
Frequency of participation in civic/political organizations among
Turkish youth according to gender.
PIDOP-Processes Influencing Democratic
Ownership and Participation
Frequency of participation in civic/political organizations among
Roma youth according to gender.
PIDOP-Processes Influencing Democratic
Ownership and Participation
Frequency of participation in civic/political organizations among
the Bulgarian resettler youth according to gender.
PIDOP-Processes Influencing Democratic
Ownership and Participation
RESULTS & IMPLICATIONS

When it comes to differences in participation frequency in a
gendered manner, methodologically significant associations
missing, yet a persistent trend where young girls are
participating less than boys obviously show that gender does
matter for youth participation!!

Statistically significant age effect on the level of
participation exist where the youth aged between 15 and 19
is more active in terms of civic/political participation than
the ones aged between 20 and 26.

As the individuals grow older toward adulthood the interest
and activity in participation tend to decrease while the trend
of less participating women stays persistent by widening.
RESULTS & IMPLICATIONS

As the socio-economic conditions become better,
education level and employment increase, gender starts
to become more matter for civic/political
participation.

As this study show, with the negative effect of age toward
twenties in civic/political participation might be doubled
with the effect of being women or belonging to an
ethnic minority in Turkey.

When the sample of this study widened to the Turkish
society level and when the today's youth become the
adults, workers, policy makers and the roots of society in
the future, then gender gap in participatory action and
civic engagement do matter much more!!!
Considering gender as an important
factor while encouraging youth into
participatory action, analyzing, defining
or implementing the policies related to
youth participation rights, is crucial!!
PIDOP-Processes Influencing Democratic
Ownership and Participation
The PIDOP project is supported by a grant received from the European
Commission 7th Framework Programme, FP7- SSH-2007-1, Grant
Agreement no: 225282, Processes Influencing Democratic Ownership
and Participation (PIDOP) awarded to the University of Surrey (UK),
University of Liège (Belgium), Masaryk University (Czech Republic),
University of Jena (Germany), University of Bologna (Italy), University of
Porto (Portugal), Örebro University (Sweden), Ankara University
(Turkey) and Queen’s University Belfast (UK)
PIDOP-Processes Influencing Democratic
Ownership and Participation